Whose Lives Are You Shaping?

The motivation to work on ourselves--for instance, take a course, visit a therapist, join a mastermind group--is that we want something better in our lives. Whether it's a career step, a relationship goal, or a skill we want to develop, something is important enough to merit time and attention. 

 

While these reasons are worthwhile, what about working on ourselves because of the influence we have on other people? In Western culture, we are more likely than in other cultures, such as Japanese, to set and go after individual goals. This may be even more evident in the workplace than in families and communities. We may undervalue the so-called "soft skills."

 

Teachers, coaches, health care workers, and such are very aware of how they are shaping the lives of students or clients.  That is the work. Hopefully, they are receptive to feedback and continue to grow and learn as people-helpers. Their professional development deepens their skill and wisdom as guides.

 

Do managers take the same care about how they relate to employees?

 

Research documents the strength of managers' impact on the people who work for them. Managers' leadership skills are not only important for the success of the enterprise, they are also a major factor in employees' sense of self worth and motivation. 

 

Managers, from project managers to top executives, are evaluated mostly in terms of productivity and profit. If they are held accountable for employee satisfaction or retention, it is secondary to performance. While these concerns seem to serve the company's interests, they don't account for the delicate human relationships that actually keep it together.

 

Managers are likely to be high performers who can be tough on other people as well as themselves.  When you add in the pressure of deadlines, organizational demands, and urgent business issues, that tough taskmaster can come out and, without any evil intention at all, stomp all over the people who are nearby. 

 

Perhaps instead the manager just fails to connect and communicate, leaving employees in the dark. The manager's inability to give feedback well, or make clear requests, or create a collaborative climate, might set employees up for failure or harmful competition.

 

In most organizations, it's really a personal choice to invest in how you relate to and affect people who work for you. In the long run, people who are acknowledged, challenged, and respected will show a return on the investment.

Invest in your ability to have a positive influence by growing your own skills.  Start off by doing it for them. Then when you are getting a lot out of it for yourself, the return on your investment will at least double.

 

This can seem paradoxical. Helping your employees may mean putting time and attention into your own development, not just theirs. Students in our courses often comment that they wished their manager would have taken this course. It would make their work lives so much easier. 

 

To go another step, it would make work much easier if the manager AND the employees learned some of the same concepts about communicating, effective meetings, clear requests and agreements, etc. so that the team could evolve together. 

 

If you are a manager, or whenever you are leading people, tune into the responses you get when you interact with them. Maybe even ask them their experience of your communication, if you have already created a safe enough space for them to tell you. 

 

Of course, SYNTAX is what we recommend for a way to empower others as well as yourself. Whatever the chosen method, consider that you have as much responsibility as anyone for the experience of the people you lead, and show up as the kind of leader you want to be. You are shaping lives.